


A Soft Universe

by dawngloaming



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Autistic Bruce Wayne, Batjokes, Blow Jobs, Body Image, Body Worship, Communication Failure, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Engaged, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I guess!, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, In a way, Insecurity, Insomnia, Lack of Communication, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Neurodiversity, Nightmares, Nonverbal Communication, Normal Life, One Shot, Oral Sex, Past Batcat, Praise Kink, Retired Joker, Self-Esteem Issues, Short One Shot, Slice of Life, Tender Sex, Tenderness, batfam, i guess, references to tom king's best man run
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 04:10:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20790416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawngloaming/pseuds/dawngloaming
Summary: Bruce and Joker are happily engaged. Joker has been rehabilitated and goes by Jack. Bruce learns that Jack needs more verbal reassurance and that his lack of communication isn't cutting it. Jack confesses to feeling insecure about how people see him when he's next to Bruce, and how he might compare to Selina or any of Bruce's exes.  Read for extreme sappiness, vignettes of a softer universe, and Bruce loving J's body.





	A Soft Universe

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Tom King's Best Man issues.  
Title is an Aurora song!

It was the littlest things about Joker that Bruce was starting to pick up on. He tries to press every detail into his memory for safekeeping, with the caring attention of a child pressing flowers into a book. He has learned not to take any moment with a loved one for granted. 

His eyes are always wide open and so very focussed, around Joker. Well, around Jack, these days. Joker is now Jack, a “regular” green-haired eccentric with a rocky history of battling mental illness. The name change was for publicity’s sake, but it could very well have been his “real” name. He had been on the verge of tears when choosing it, after all. 

In any case, people around Bruce certainly do notice the former most-eligible-bachelor’s ever-vigilant gaze, reserved for just one (pale, lanky) individual. But any onlookers merely smile or frown...and then look away in a prompt panic. No one wants to push this small uncharacteristic display of transparency into hiding. Bruce Wayne was always charming, but was still hard to read. That is, before Jack opened himself up to sharing a life with Bruce, and in turn opened HIM up. 

Before Jack, no one had seen a Bruce that wasn’t exuding a palpable air of Being In Control. Not in a long while. No one outside of his family remembered seeing such genuinely impressed, bewildered, loving expressions cross his face, until now. Before Jack, it was all confident smirks, charming grins, and boyishly cocked brows. The shallow yet fetching emotions of an actor. 

Now, Bruce’s emotions course through him continuously, like a waterfall...rushing and strong and hard to miss. Of course, the mask still remains. Only, it’s different now. At prestigious events, Bruce tends to slip it right back on, just two seconds after turning from his lover towards a benefactor or reporter. It feels like watching a chilling possession, to see it replaced so reflexively. Everyone finds it a bit unnerving, yet incredibly fascinating, nonetheless.

But away from the public eye, the mask really is gone...completely! Bruce is no longer split in three: the notorious Wayne of the company galas and yacht parties, good ol Brucie of the batfamily, formidable Batman of the alleys and rooftops. He’s just. Himself. He’s just...loved. Identities don’t seem to matter as much in love. He no longer feels the need to question himself, ever. Not when looking into those pools of green and expanding black...that gaze that never fails to meet his. 

When no one is looking (or so he presumes), he strains to take in every detail of the porcelain man by his side: between the moment he opens his eyes to gaze at his partner (who ALMOST always wakes up before him)...to the moment when he fights against the shutting of his eyelids. Bruce remains ceaselessly eager to take in more of a rare sight. He loves to watch a restful Jack, with those dark green eyelashes casting shadows on his milk-colored cheeks. 

Jack cracks jokes, saying his fiance (yes, fiance!) has a staring problem. Saying, “This is just like old times! You, relentlessly monitoring me! Like you used to do behind aaaallll those screens. With that batcomputer of yours!” Bruce’s ears blush as his mouth quirks up ever so slightly. His REAL smile isn’t quite as flashy as the Wayne grin. 

One night, Jack gets up from the little desk where he spends his insomniac waking hours, drawing new clothing designs and scrawling sporadic poems in red ink. He stretches his back out of its hunched position and urgently pitter-patters forward to kiss Bruce’s cheek. The two are bathed in the light of a full moon and midnight blue, and Jack feels his chest warm with affection. That, and the sudden anxiety that brought him to wake his sleeping lover. 

Bruce turns over to see Jack's face inches away from his own. He‘s kneeling at the bed, thin fingers fiddling with the cuff of Bruce’s nightshirt. It’s a blue silk set, a gift bought to match Jack’s own red one. Both were paid for with leftover crime-boss money but...it’s the thought that counts. Jack looks nervous and surprisingly angelic: sparse brows knit together, bottom lip pulled all the way under worrying teeth, thin curls halo’d about his head. 

“ WhassamatterJay,” Bruce mumbles out in the soft gravelly voice of sleep, petting back the one unruly strand always on Jack’s forehead. He leans into the touch, and then nudges forward. His forehead softly plops down on his favorite pillow...Bruce’s stomach. Bruce continues to smooth back the soft green locks.

“Cats. Cats is the matter,” responds Jack, matter of fact. He never calls Selina her name. Only Kitty, Cats, or some other variation on Catwoman. “Huh? Wha-what about Selina?” asks a thoroughly confused Bruce. It’s late, and it takes him a moment to recall that hours ago, the three of them had gone out to a cafe, before dropping Selina off at her apartment.

She had been visiting Damian. Plus, Bruce had thought it wise to go somewhere to talk to his ex about his impending marriage to Jack...the very same man who had tried to violently ruin his previous wedding to HER. That was a talk best had away from the eavesdropping of so many batkids. So, the trio had gone out.

Jack makes some dithering “hmm” sounds for a few seconds and then manages a response, attempting to elaborate on what was wrong. “What do you...what about me is likeable, I mean… wha. What do YOU like about ME,” Jack mumbles, incoherent in his self consciousness. He rubs his face into Bruce’s soft, scarred skin like a cat HIMSELF. To be quite honest, Bruce can see the most bizarre parallels between his current and past fiances: the bright green eyes, the way they walked the streets like a personal runway, the biting wit.

But they are still world’s apart, Jack and Selina. And Bruce likes it like that. He had never perceived a deep desire for companionship as strong as Jack’s...Jack’s inner wound matched Bruce’s own, their voids filled each other. Selina was fine on her own. 

She claimed she wanted more, but “more” meant LESS self-reliance, meant less freedom...someone leaning on her? That was a cage. That cat did not want to be declawed. That was the excuse she and Bruce told each other, at least. But bottom line, she’s fine. Better than fine. 

Bruce and Jack were each their own hobbled version of “fine” on their own, yes. But together...they’re better than fine. They become their brightest and deepest selves. Surely Jack is confident in this fact, so why...all THIS? Why all the...angst? Bruce feels thrown for a loop.

“Don’t tell me...you’re still thinking about Selina’s little joke? You dish it but you can’t take it, huh?” smiles Bruce, lifting up to lean on his elbows. Jack turns to peek up at him, frowning those pale unpainted lips. 

“Well. Is she...prettier... than me? Is she?” Jack’s voice sounds bland, frank. It’s jarring, coming from a man of such typically lilting tones. This is the tone he gets when holding back tears, when trying to drown his emotions. If he didn’t recognize that, Bruce would be laughing now. Jack’s phrasing was so reminiscent of some teen girl in a cheesy highschool film. I mean, “prettier than me?” 

But well, earlier on, Selina had asked Jack, in a teasing tone, “So, he loves YOU, now. Why?” Jack had replied with a laugh and a wink, saying, “I’m prettier than you.” Selina had leaned back in her chair, and retorted, “Are you?” It was with an easy smile, without bite. It was just an inside joke, referencing the reverse exchange the two had shared. A throwback to when Jack (Joker, back then) had attempted to abort Selina’s wedding to HIS bat. 

The problem is that Jack had secretly taken Selina’s words to heart. Even if they were his own words, turned back on him. It just hit too close to home. He really DID believe he looked...wrong, next to his fiance. And SHE...well she WOULD have at least LOOKED right. Jack actually IS right for Bruce, his darling Batsy. But he doesn’t look like anybody that ANYONE would’ve seen as a match fit for Gotham’s tragic darling. 

And the thing is, yeah, Jack actively rejects and reconstructs notions of beauty. Yeah, he’s quite confident in his own eccentricity. And sure, he adores drawing so much attention, usually. He just feels so unsure. He’s unsure that Bruce won’t miss having something BEAUTIFUL on his arm...in his bed. He KNOWS Bruce loves him. He sure knows Bruce is attracted to him. But he had just...never heard Bruce actually articulate what he thought of Jack’s appearance. 

“You always WATCH me...but I never know what you see. You never tell me,” Jack spits out. And Oh. A heavy weight falls over Bruce’s heart, because he gets it.. He doesn’t talk much, never has. Everyone knows this. Sure, he talks more around Jack, whose enthusiasm is infectious. But he’s never been as vocal as Jack about lavishing praise on his lover. It doesn’t come naturally to him. 

He really does have all these beautiful thoughts that cloud his head when he looks at his fiance. His heart swells several times a day, every day, thanks to the man who once posed a knife over it, long ago. He feels so much love when he sees him doing spontaneous magic tricks for the kids. He beams inside when he catches Jack smiling with such a gentleness...one that still comes as a shock after so many years. His chest feels like bursting when he catches Jack dancing in front of the mirror while getting dressed. Or when he’s singing along to some old tune and randomly helping Alfred with his work around the manor. (It’s good for him to stay busy, so no one questions it.) Still yet, every nice thing that Bruce could say about how beautiful Jack looks in all these little moments...they simply clump together and block his throat from uttering a single word. 

He always figured that the other man could read his reciprocated adoration in his actions. And besides, he never really considered that Jack was very insecure at all. Anyone who looks and acts the way Jack does would naturally seem shameless. Clearly, he couldn’t be more wrong, he thinks as he gazes back at that incredibly unguarded face. 

Now that he thinks about it, he recalls all the moments Jack would groan and cover his face, whenever Bruce snapped a quick candid photo of him without his makeup. He always gave the excuse that he looked “like a corpse,” despite Bruce’s protests. He also recalls all the moments he caught Jack glancing at his reflection in any reflective surface...or staring at it for prolonged moments in the bathroom, both pulling faces and pulling AT his face dejectedly. It sometimes looked as if he didn’t see his face as...his face...but more like a tool of sorts.

He thinks about how Jack doesn’t even fully know who he was, before everything that’s happened to him and everything that he’s made happen to himself and to Gotham. He thinks of the way he clings to Bruce after the nightmares that haunt him whenever he actually sleeps. The way he mumbles about needing Bruce to feel REAL, to hold himself to the bed so he won’t float away or dissolve. And those sudden and very deliberate touches Jack presses into Bruce’s skin all day. As if he was seeking some sort of reminder of his presence. And then Bruce thinks about how Jack tends to idly smack himself repeatedly until bruising, with whatever stiff object finds way to his hands. He hurts himself in little ways with a dreadful sense of casualness. Every morning, he turns the shower heat up ALL the way. His skin is scalded in blotchy pink by the time he steps out, and Bruce frowns to see it.

It all clicks together in the “world’s greatest detective’s” head and he realizes just HOW MUCH Jack seeks VALIDATION of his existence and impact on those around him. He realizes how much Jack seeks reassurance that the people he loves love him back just the same, and that not everything in his life is merely delusion. Finally, Bruce arrives at the overdue conclusion that Jack needs to be loved OUT LOUD. He hums a sound of regret, to which Jack inches closer, moving to lie with his head on Bruce’s chest and their bodies pressed together. In turn, his face is suddenly being grasped in those large hands he loves, just the way he likes. It makes him feel engulfed, swaddled...grounded. 

“Jack...you’re...you’re so beautiful it fucking scares me,” Bruce breathes out, low and urgent and so desperately emphatic. His eyes bounced back and forth, scanning Jack’s gaze, trying to ascertain if his words were believed. Jack’s eyes seem to get a bit glassier and his lips tremble ever so slightly, as if attempting to smile...or attempting not to cry. His face flushes a bit, but it’s unclear why...Jack tends to blush over every strong emotion, after all, on account of his complexion. 

Bruce presses a smattering kisses across Jack’s face, firmly placed, knowing that pressure always reassures him. He may not know how to verbally communicate what he wants to say to the love of his life, but he truly does know the slighter man incredibly well. He knows how to use touch to the very extent of its ability to communicate, and in the specific ways that cater to Jack’s physical and emotional needs. 

Bruce feels Jack’s face twitch under his lips and hears him make the softest sound. It’s a whining exhale...a sort of sad, relieved, and frustrated sound. Bruce knows that what he’s said just isn’t putting the beating heart now pressed to his chest at ease. “J...no, really. It’s just...ugh. Tell you what. I’m gonna...write it down. That alright with you, hm?” he asks, without pushing Jack to look at him just yet. Still, rubbing his face and hair into Bruce (this time, his neck), Jack nods his assent. 

Bruce reaches over Jack’s jutting shoulder blades (like wings of frail-feeling bone) for the phone on his bedside table, where he also switches the lights back on. He begins to type out his thoughts in a rapid stream of consciousness that is surely leaving errors. Jack continues to lie on him, his light frame adding absolutely zero burden of weight. 

As Bruce types, Jack rolls off his chest and ambles towards the en suite bathroom to wait. It’s the closest room where he can wait without making Bruce feel the pressure of his attention. He had brought his own phone, and decided to scroll through instagram in the meantime. 

Jack crawls into the empty tub and lies back, flicking past images of Paris Fashion Week and occasionally leaving likes on looks he wanted to use in the future. He knows Bruce will take a while getting his thoughts together, being the stoic man of few words that he is. But soon enough, the first message comes. It’s already a considerable wall of text, quite the surprise. Jack bites his knuckles to stop from squeaking or giggling with nerves or delight.

“Jack. You are like...like every beautiful thing I’ve ever been told not to touch, and I can’t believe that now I’m actually allowed to. I can’t believe I’m trusted to be gentle enough with this gift to keep it. You’re like that shelf of expensive-ass China in the dining room. You’re like mother’s best pearl necklace, special and not at ALL day-to-day. You shine in the night, paradoxically gaudy and classic...untouchable. Until now. We always touched, but it was rarely kind. And now, I get to hold you like this. And every scar of yours, plus every one of my corresponding scars, remind me of how hard we both worked to get here. You’re more than just some physically stunning eye candy I take to a cocktail party. You and I have history that could never be replicated. You’re like sea glass. I touch you and my hands remember that danger should lie beneath my fingertips but...your edges are... softened to me now? Sea glass isn’t easy to look through, but I can see so much light through you, through all the fog of your murky past.”

Metaphors...wow. Who knew Bruce Wayne could write like that. He must’ve had some good rich boy tutors back in the day. Jack rolls on his side in the tub, curling an arm around his stomach, which is currently bursting with butterflies. He wants to scream...Bruce’s words are making him both cringe and swoon, miraculously. And he gets no time to recover because suddenly there’s another block of gushing words popping up in his messages. 

“I want you to know, first and foremost, that I love you for the presence you bring into my life. You make me feel wide awake with every laugh. You make it impossible to just autopilot my way through the day. You’re cold in all the ways I’m warm, you’re light in all the ways I am heavy and dark. You were right when you said we’re mirrors. But if you wanna hear about how you LOOK? How “pretty” you are? Compared to Selina and Silver and all the others? Firstly, you gotta think about how you’re the first guy I’ve dated, and come to really love. You’re this beautiful amalgam of starkly, jarringly feminine and masculine and just YOU. You’re like night and day with these women.”

Jack tosses over to face the other wall now, unable to stop from squirming with all the nervous energy building up and seeping out of him. He moves the hand clutching his abdomen to his mouth, like a schoolgirl fawning over her crush. His cheeks ache and he can’t tell if his face wants to split into a full-bodied laugh or a sob. 

A couple minutes pass and then finally, he receives the text he was waiting for. The one that would describe what the hell Bruce SEES in him, physically. Him, the one who knew he was nothing but a clown the moment he emerged from his chemical bath, face disfigured so comically. HIM, Jack, the one who looked almost as skeletal as the damned Scarecrow. He who never remembered really being called handsome, and never remembered being anything more than a circus freak. 

His hands shake to read Bruce’s entirely sweet descriptions of his face, his body. It’s a long message, too. Practically bubbling. Jack can’t believe this is what’s been running through BRUCE’s head. BRUCE for crying out loud.

“Your face has these gorgeous slopes on it...down the bridge of your nose, across your cheekbones, the dip of your brow. Your hands are the most elegant things I’ve ever seen...thin and fast and long and dextrous. They’re like lethal talons, sometimes, but flutter like falling feathers, other times. The way you move them, every move with the purpose of a silent film star...it’s fascinating to watch as you tell a story to the crowds at an event, or explain your day shopping for dinner with Alfred, or dancing your fingers about while my jazz records play, or stitching a monogram into some fancy handkerchief of yours. Your hands have a scientific precision to them, despite their theatrical flair. And your LEGS. You’re so damn slim but your legs are strong. Whether they’re gently yet insistently pulling me in by the back or giving a kick to the punching bag in the gym. They’re graceful...when you’re gliding me over to a dance floor, or triple-crossing those goddamn long stems as you read some of your fancy Russian poets. And...this embarasses me to say, but they’re...so soft, too! Thank God some part of you is, I get elbowed enough at night to know the rest is very sharp, indeed. But your thighs...God I love your thighs...framing my face, or peeking out the slit of that one Angelina Jolie-style dress you thought was appropriate for the family christmas dinner (for WHATEVER reason...drama queen). “

Jack is trying so hard to breathe quietly, and yet Bruce’s compliments keep coming, unrelenting. It feels like when your desert comes, and it’s too sweet and rich to really handle. It’s more than Jack could have dreamed.

“Your smile too. I love seeing the way it surprises people in its range: sometimes sharp and cutting, sometimes a quick lighthearted burst, sometimes that smug smirk that drives me crazy. I could stare at your teeth for hours, watching your mouth as you talk, remembering the bites I let you give me, hidden by my starched collars. And oh gosh, I can’t forget your eyes. I love the way sunlight makes that neon green a sort of honey color. And the way they squint when you’re really genuinely happy and give that smile that pulls your whole face into it, not just the lower half. Your hair, as well...I love it. It’s silky. I love when it’s long enough for that tiny ponytail of yours that I like to pull. Not to annoy or distract you. Just to touch it, for the hell of it. Around you, I’m always doing things for the hell of it. You bring that newness out of me, like new leaves on spring trees. Your hair is the color of new beginnings, endless chances for a fresh start, and endless chances to laugh in the face of death and the dark.”

Who knew Jack had been proposed to by goddamn Shakespeare? A dumbass Shakespeare, but an incredibly romantic one nonetheless. Jack sits up, eagerly twirling his apparently spring-green (not acid, not nuclear) hair, still unconsciously playing the smitten schoolgirl. One last message pings onto his screen.

“I love you. I love you. I love you. I’m choosing you, got it? In fact, the time of CHOICES has come and gone. Forgive me for the cheesiness but...if I am the night, you are the moon. So forget about CATS. Got it? Anyway...uhh...just don’t ask me to do this again. Just print it out, ok? Hang it up, frame it, I don’t mind. I’ll try my best to compliment you more in real time, though, rest assured. “

Choked up, Jack taps out an uncharacteristically short, “got it.” And poor Bruce, in the bedroom, squints at the little response. He wonders morosely if he hasn’t jumped through enough hoops yet. But he doesn’t have much time to brood over it, because the bathroom door bursts open, and before he knows it, Jack is sitting by his side on the edge of the bed, arms wrapped around his broad shoulders, kissing him everywhere. 

An old nickname, retconned from Jack’s vocabulary to prevent public slip-ups, slips out of those thin lips. “Batsy, Batsy, Batsy,” he whispers with reverence, as if all his prayers were answered, and this was his “hallelujah.” Bruce pushes him off, gently. Jack inhales a little, as if he thinks it was the slip-up that caused this abrupt action. But he finds his cold palms in his own warm ones. Bruce begins to get off the bed and onto his knees in front of Jack, still clasping their hands together.

Bruce looks up at Jack with his icy yet warm eyes. He catches on and helps Bruce pull his silk pants down by lifting his hips a little. The eye contact remains. Jack’s eyelids relax into the gaze, pupils pooling into black as his smile curves up like a cheshire cat. This time, Bruce can tell exactly why his favorite man...his BEST MAN...his only man, is blushing oh so badly. He smirks, looking down at the lap in front of him, considering how that blush remains consistent throughout Jack’s whole body. Bruce lowers a soft kiss on the vulnerability presented for his lips. “Oh you’re pretty, alright” he says in that deep and vaguely gravelly voice of his, throwing in a wink borrowed from his playboy days. 

Jack snorts a small laugh, quickly pulling the brunette locks under his fingers in revenge. “What, I said I’d give you more compliments!” Bruce gasps out, laughing, but also catching a light blush of his own. Jack leans forward to whisper in his ear, still holding onto the hair just above his nape. “I dunno...I THINK...that maybe now can be more...SHOW than TELL. Just this once, huh? Got it?” he inquires, voice syrupy with faux innocence, and breathy with desire.

Bruce whispers back, a grin of his own unfurling on his face: “Got it.” And with that, he takes the man he’ll soon marry into his mouth like a sacrament. He does his damndest to pull any remaining doubts he can from his body. Jack can’t help but ooze nothing but pure trust. 

Outside the warmly lit room, the night envelops the glowing moon, completely suspended in the dark and so full of light. Inside, the little world of a bat king and his clown prince acts as a mirror to the world out the window. Unbeknownst to them, for once, Gotham sleeps easy. There is harmony in the streets. 

Aaand within Bruce’s pretentious 100 percent Egyptian cotton sheets. That too.

**Author's Note:**

> If you saw in the tags, yeah, Bruce is autistic. I wanted to write this subtly tho.  
Also uhhh this is unbeta'd


End file.
